Your Chicago Way read of the day comes from the Detroit News, where columnist Daniel Howes brings news that a few calls from the White House have led to Ford Motor Company yanking ads that spotlighted its refusal to take government auto bailout money.

For the only Detroit automaker that “didn’t take the money” of the federal auto bailouts, Ford Motor Co. keeps paying a price for its comparative success and self-reliant turnaround.

There’s no help from American taxpayers to help lighten its debt load, giving crosstown rivals comparatively better credit ratings and a financial edge Ford is working diligently to erase all on its own.

There’s no clause barring a strike by hourly workers amid this fall’s national contract talks with the United Auto Workers — a by-product of the taxpayer-financed bailout that General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC retain until 2015.

And there’s no assurance the Dearborn automaker can use the commercially advantageous fact that it didn’t “take the money” proffered by the Obama Treasury Department and use it in TV ads angling to sell cars and trucks. Not if the campaign takes a whack at its Detroit rivals and suggests that Ford no longer supports the Obama administration bailouts it backed in public statements and sworn congressional testimony.

As part of a campaign featuring “real people” explaining their decision to buy the Blue Oval, a guy named “Chris” says he “wasn’t going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government,” according the text of the ad, launched in early September.

“I was going to buy from a manufacturer that’s standing on their own: win, lose, or draw. That’s what America is about is taking the chance to succeed and understanding when you fail that you gotta’ pick yourself up and go back to work.”

That’s what some of America is about, evidently. Because Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House questioned whether the copy was publicly denigrating the controversial bailout policy CEO Alan Mulally repeatedly supported in the dark days of late 2008, in early ’09 and again when the ad flap arose. And more.

In another typical Chicago-on-the-Potomac coincidence, the Obama campaign’s “Attack Watch” is back up and running on Twitter after a nearly two-week-long hiatus. The subject of the snitch squad’s last attack watch attack?

In this case, it was Chris, who explained how he came to star in the commercial and reiterated his support for Ford during an interview this morning on WJR-AM 760.

“I still standby what I said, and that is, as Americans, we need to decide if we’re going to be run by a government or if we’re going to be run by free enterprise,” he told host Frank Beckmann. “That’s really the debate that we’re facing today. So I applaud Ford, still, to this day, for having the courage to put that ad on the TV and spur the debate.

Ford Motor Company Jeff we were not coerced into pulling the ad down. The campaign continues to run. We took the ad out of rotation after 4 weeks which is consistent with the typical lifecycle for the campaign.

There were conflicting reports that the ad had been yanked from YouTube. It appears that the ad is still there, though.

Someone’s in a panic over at Ford’s social media department, for sure. The original YouTube ad uploaded weeks ago on the site is not available. See the embed of the original ad from September 16 here at hotair: “Video has been removed by the user.”

The one now appearing on the site was re-uploaded on September 23.

I think diggrbiii has this right: “Ford pulls TV ad, claims it was just normal scheduling, keeps YouTube version up for plausible deniability.”

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Update: I’ve heard from several readers who’ve contacted Detroit News reporter Dan Howes for comment. I have contacted him directly, too and will update.

When I asked Mr. McDaniel what he thought about the reports that the White House may have pressured Ford into removing his commercial he said, “I understand the political world Ford lives in. I don’t fault them. But, I’m on the hook with my tax dollars on this Solyndra scandal. It’s exactly the same thing as the GM and Chrysler bailouts. Enough is enough! The only people on the hook in this country are the 50% of American who still pay taxes. And now we have the federal government butting their nose into this TV ad. Another example of them getting involved in things they have no business getting involved in. Where is the free speech of American citizens?”